Dev Workshop: Upcoming Console Virtual Cursor Changes & D-Pad Functionality (for all Platforms)!

[(XBOX)Shad0w Rabbit]

As I'm sure you've seen by now, and it's only going to get worse, we don't like it. And the little part at then end that basically says, "you'll get used to it because you are stuck with it" is kind of insulting. It just doesn't work for consoles. If you are trying to unify all platforms then give all platforms the option to turn this garbage off and go back to how it was before. Cursors do not work for intuitive navigation on consoles. It's slow and clunky and made me shut my Xbox off after about 5 minutes of frustration just trying to go through the arsenal menus.

[(PSN)Endarkens]

I am now more aggravated that this was done intentionally...  Seriously? 

This is VERY poor design, with very poor thought put into it.  It was already very intuitive.. It worked, and it worked well... Not any more.  I'm disgusted.  I'm hurt.

I actively keep my eyes on the warfare sub-reddit.  If this gets fixed great.  When sacrifice comes out, I'll play through so i hopefully have some closure on this game... Then it may be dead to me... 

[(PSN)SAzzanadra]

At first I just assumed I was in a "change is bad" mentality, but the more I use it the more I'm just asking why.

Why does the dpad in the foundry go slower from left to right than right to left.  Why is the speed different?

Why was dpad usage removed for some of the UI?  I can no longer quickly leave parties after the end of an alert.  I can use the dpad to quickly move thorugh the pause menu, but no longer up to the party interface.  Why?

Why do I have to drag and drop with a gamepad, It's terrible and slow!  Just let me swap between two positions like we always could!

Why were face button shortcuts removed? Why was it terrible to let me press Triangle/Y for modding, X/A for equiping, and Squre/X for changing appearence?  Now when I want to change equipment, I have to select the slot in question, and instead of hitting x, now I have to press Right, Up, Up,x since by default hitting right takes the cursor to the bottom of the list.

These things are just what immediately comes to mind, there is probably so much more as I try and use it. 

Gamepads and KB+M are two totally different UI input methods, trying to create one thing that fits all is just going to create a crap UI for both PC and Console.  You don't exactly need to cater to PC users that like using gamepads, Heck I was one of those weirdos that used a 360 controller until my video card bit the dust and the PS4 came out at the same time.  And there was NO expectation that the UI would fit gamepads.  Why would it? I had a KB+M right in front of me!

Overall, the UI is slow and frustrating, nearly every action in the game is now way slower.  If there is some kind of upcoming feature that justifies this change, it should have waited until the feature was here because for now we're just going to have to suffer for no reason.  Best thing to do going forward is to give an option to use the older, faster UI control scheme.

Edit: oh I just discovered the "double click" needed to change a weapon this rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper.  There is no need to double tap x! Ever!

[(PSN)azul86sapphire]

So... this occurs to me late, but it hit me... we got a half-update.  We got Navigation changes for a Menu system we don't have yet.  We have seen how the new menus are being designed (via Devstreams), and these new UI changes we recieved are supposed to compliment that new layout... but they do not compliment the current layout.

It is like giving us dry erase markers, but leaving us with a chalkboard.  We don't yet have the whiteboard these markers were designed for, and they do not work effectively on a medium designed for chalk.

I am still concerned over the functionality in a number of ways - namely, the navigation is not intuitive for a controller.  And maybe the new menu designs will address that... but that just makes me think releasing the work incomplete was not the best strategy.

[(PSN)FurryZenJustice]

Okay, these comments are both as a heavy user of your product and as a professional UX designer / software engineer.

I understand that the level of needed change to support the new UI required creating a common codebase in the short term that could be diverged from in a less spaghetti code like fashion. I understand that this is also our first chance for feedback. And understanding the development process, I'm practicing patience and I appreciate your efforts in trying to create something better and your willingness to take on risk with the promise of something better. Too many software companies are terrified of risk and produce boring garbage as a result.

I figure you knew that the new UI on console was going to be painful. The major pain points are really anywhere you have to activate/hover over something to activate something else. E.g.

• Hovering over the warframe in the arsenal to open up the sub-menu (e.g. equip, appearance). More on this later.
• Relic interface back and forth between selecting relic and refining relic.
• Opening up the chat, and then having to move into it to scroll.

The other major issue is that the d-pad is only partially acting like a keyboard with the concept of focus. There are so many lists (e.g. market, mods, relics, codex) where the d-pad starts acting like a cursor with keyboard focus, but it fails when it hits an edge. It breaks the metaphor when it doesn't scroll the container. I think this is one of the major areas of frustration.

Some other observations:

• The right-stick to zoom and the right-stick to open up the drone/extractor menu is creating some annoying accidental zoom issues.
• The d-pad on the fully zoomed-out navigation map is basically useless as it has "stops" you can't see.
• The removal of color for button prompts (square, triangle, etc.) has been disorienting. I imagine this is so you can theme them later. But even then I'd prefer to keep the original PS/XBOX colors.
• D-pad doesn't work at all on navigation quick view (R1 on PS).
• Right-stick to zoom zooms too quickly and typically zooms you to the point where things are cut off with a simple tap.
• Scroll bars probably shouldn't be "stops" for d-pad navigation as you already have the ability to manipulate them via the right-stick.
• In the arsenal list when navigating with the d-pan, which sub-menu is selected depends on if you came down to the parent (e.g. primary), or up or from the sub-menu itself. E.g. going to frame then down to primary then right will select Appearance, but going up to primary from secondary and then right will select Equip.

The biggest drawback to the current system, in my view, is the loss of muscle memory. I hope you improve the d-pad experience and I hope the new UI that's coming plays to the strengths of the cursor. I wish you all luck and I understand this is a work in progress. I also know that until things are improved, I'm going to miss the old UI and will be frustrated as things stand. I hope you plan on rolling out the new UI soon.

 

Addendum: I have noticed that there are a lot of bugs around d-pad navigation even based on how it's intended to work. Perhaps once some of these are fixed it won't be as much of a problem.

I guess the question I have that a lot of other people are having is: was using the d-pad to simulate keyboard navigation not possible? I wouldn't want to forgo the ability to use up/down/left/right on the keyboard in a PC application. The concept of keyboard focus is something that is unified and could serve as a useful metaphor. I'm presuming there was something preventing that though.

[(XBOX)LiddelLostAlice]

I can understand a lot of the changes, sure, but having to physically drag a mod to a slot? Come on DE. That takes so much more time than it needs to. 

This was super unnecessary to implement. I get it’ll make coding a little easier for you guys but I play warframe on Xbox because I enjoy not using a cursor. Most games that port from PC that I enjoy don’t make their users use a stick as a cursor. It’s a waste of time when you can just use buttons instead. 

 

This is is a stupid update, not to mention that after installing it it crashed my console. 

Why would you work on this when you could fix other bugs, like how sometimes after stalker comes in the nearest door to extraction won’t open anymore and the mission is unable to be completed?

No one asked for this and it’s honestly stupid. 

[(XBOX)Shad0w Rabbit]

1 hour ago, (PS4)azul86sapphire said:

So... this occurs to me late, but it hit me... we got a half-update.  We got Navigation changes for a Menu system we don't have yet.  We have seen how the new menus are being designed (via Devstreams), and these new UI changes we recieved are supposed to compliment that new layout... but they do not compliment the current layout.

It is like giving us dry erase markers, but leaving us with a chalkboard.  We don't yet have the whiteboard these markers were designed for, and they do not work effectively on a medium designed for chalk.

I am still concerned over the functionality in a number of ways - namely, the navigation is not intuitive for a controller.  And maybe the new menu designs will address that... but that just makes me think releasing the work incomplete was not the best strategy.

That may be so but I get the feeling that the old style of menu navigation will work better for the new UI regardless, simply due to the fact that controllers and keyboard/mouse work differently in how they allow you to navigate things.

[(PSN)LEONARD_LEONE]

You guys are freaking out over something that haven't even reached its final form, something that devs made abundantly clear, lets give them some credit and wait till after the 2nd part is added.

I played on PS4 since launch and I think this is a great update and will probably make more sense once we have the part 2 of UI overhaul as it's not meant to work with this old stuff.

It's not perfect tho so here are things to improve:

1. When moding add grab and hold option/toggle.

2. When hovering over wep/frame have a square open appearance, triangle upgrade and cross equip. (Just like a mouse has several buttons it would make sense that our pointer does too)

3. Have the pointer give visual feedback (like change shape or color when it's clicking on something) and the menu that is being select visually highlighted or change color.

4. Ability to close chat tabs by clicking on them directly instead of opening sub menu and ability to drag them.

5. When under appearance have right stick always rotate frame (bonus if you add another axis) and have r3 reset to center front and center back on second click.

6 Unrelated; but give me a shoulder toggle back when aiming.

 

[(PSN)Gemmie12]

I agree with LEONARD_LEONE. The new UI is still a work in progress, so there are some things that needed to be improved on. I played on the PC version a bit, so I know how some of these work, so I'll try to get used to it, even if it'll be slower until I'm more efficient of it. 

[(XBOX)Shad0w Rabbit]

26 minutes ago, (PS4)LEONARD_LEONE said:

You guys are freaking out over something that haven't even reached its final form, something that devs made abundantly clear, lets give them some credit and wait till after the 2nd part is added.

I played on PS4 since launch and I think this is a great update and will probably make more sense once we have the part 2 of UI overhaul as it's not meant to work with this old stuff.

It's not perfect tho so here are things to improve:

1. When moding add grab and hold option/toggle.

2. When hovering over wep/frame have a square open appearance, triangle upgrade and cross equip. (Just like a mouse has several buttons it would make sense that our pointer does too)

3. Have the pointer give visual feedback (like change shape or color when it's clicking on something) and the menu that is being select visually highlighted or change color.

4. Ability to close chat tabs by clicking on them directly instead of opening sub menu and ability to drag them.

5. When under appearance have right stick always rotate frame (bonus if you add another axis) and have r3 reset to center front and center back on second click.

6 Unrelated; but give me a shoulder toggle back when aiming.

 

I disagree. Yes this is only part of the UI overhaul and is probably meant to work better with the new UI but it most likely will still not be as good as the old navigation style. With how it is now, it is more suited for keyboard and mouse controls. Using face buttons to access different options in the arsenal was much faster and just made sense considering we have a controller, but now we have to legitimately navigate in some form to these options which slows down navigation drastically. Modding is another Prime example of things that work better for keyboard and mouse players but not for controller players, drag and drop is easy on a mouse, spot select/mod select is easier for controllers. I'm sorry but in my, and a vast majority of other console players, opinion...this was a bad move.

[(PSN)TheRealTommo]

As you can see DE the majority of console players do not like this new UI, please at least give us back the hot keys!

[(PSN)Anfffy]

6 hours ago, (XB1)Shad0w Rabbit said:

As I'm sure you've seen by now, and it's only going to get worse, we don't like it. And the little part at then end that basically says, "you'll get used to it because you are stuck with it" is kind of insulting. It just doesn't work for consoles. If you are trying to unify all platforms then give all platforms the option to turn this garbage off and go back to how it was before. Cursors do not work for intuitive navigation on consoles. It's slow and clunky and made me shut my Xbox off after about 5 minutes of frustration just trying to go through the arsenal menus.

Totally agree, myself and everyone I normally play with ended up jumping off within 5-10 min and played something else.

Tried adjusting the sensitivity but it was just really frustrating, you put it to fast and you scroll straight past you put it on where it's an acceptable speed and it's still to slow.

I did like the slight changes on the visual side it looks much more clear.

[(PSN)Reaper_Rifat]

I'm not a fan of the new UI as well. It's a pain to mod your guns and to color warframes. It's frustrating to drag the cursor to the relics and double click it in order to see its parts.Changing the sensivity doesn't make it feel better either. The UI is better for mouse players, but very very bad for the controller players.Warframe console may even actually lose players because of this. Just give the option to switch between the old UI and the new one.        

[(XBOX)octorok74]

Not a fan.  I would much prefer an option to go back to the old way. It just doesn't work well with console I feel.

[Xsoskeleton]

arent this supposed to unify pc/console UI not making PC UI adapted to consoles instead

[Xsoskeleton]

Forcing a cursor-focused UI is quite bad for platforms that majorly doesn't use Mouse as moving the cursor isn't as quick and smooth as PC Mouse+KB users, console players should have the option to keep the old UI so DE may actually also see if people likes the new UI or prefer the old one instead.

Isn't the point of old console UI with the quick buttons are to avoid the hassle of moving down cursors throughout stuffs like this?

[(XBOX)GameDog638]

I have never had a reason to dislike WF. Even with all the random bugs I've always remained patient and supportive until now. Since I started playing WF I've introduced friends and family and we've all spent so much money (proudly) to keep up, look good and most of all to show our appreciation to the developers for creating such a easy flowing lovely game for free. We all felt it was the least that we could do. As well many of us including myself have uninstalled all other games to play WF exclusively without regrets until this latest update. We played for hours and hours every single day until this. Not only us but everyone we have met with over this course of time have expressed how beyond frustrated and aggravated we are that you guys would take something that worked perfectly fine for so long and break it to the point where we are contemplating leaving the game. Look up my in game profile account and see how I've supported you guys financially since I've been playing. It may be a drop in the bucket for you guys as a whole but you will see I've spared no expense on something I found very enjoyable. I have spent an awful lot and don't regret it. But as of this latest update I will definitely be playing less if at all until you guys fix this, and I cannot and will not justify spending another single penny on a downgraded version of something I once enjoyed. This is not a threat but a promise and I hope all that feel just a strongly about this issue show you guys in their own ways that this is total nonsense. If it isn't fixed all I can say for myself and a lot of the people I've personally introduced to WF is it was good while it lasted. I have for the first time since playing this game reinstalled several of my other games. Games I didn't have time for previously because of WF. We play on consoles not PC's. If you guys favor PC gameplay and design over consoles I will respect that and humbly gravitate toward other awesome games. 

[(PSN)bbyrneirl]

The Ui needs to change.  Quality of life functionality in this game has taken a nose dive

I do not use a Mouse and keyboard.  Frustrating and time consuming, when it worked just fine.  I just cannot stand to play the game, even the new ICONS are not good, have you ever heard of the visually impaired.  Need more color and substance to the ICONS, they all look like target icons or something. 

 

When making UI design changes you should make it more efficient, optimized and easier to understand.  You want less time spent moving around menu's. Less button press's and steps to complete a task.

This UI does the opposite of all these, Why do i have to move the cursor over a relic and then click X to see what it will give me, makes no sense. This is an example of poor design. Dpad scrolling worked just fine, quick and simple.  thing here is the cursor is not a good way to force controller users to play.  

Anyone ever tried playing Time Crisis with a controller.  Same thing, is horrible, but also removing dpad functionality and any option to choose the old UI as well as some shortcuts was a serious mistake.  I am sorry but i cannot handle having to navigate this way, So much time in Warframe is spent in these menu's, now it will be so much more and not happy times either. 

Please at least give us the choice of having this new UI or the old one in options.  I know i would switch it back to the old one. .

Thank you for all your hard work, this is just a big misstep though.  

[(PSN)Elvenbane]

6 hours ago, (XB1)Shad0w Rabbit said:

I disagree. Yes this is only part of the UI overhaul and is probably meant to work better with the new UI but it most likely will still not be as good as the old navigation style.

A new UI *designed* to leverage a virtual cursor (and dpad) will be fine provided they still provide button/keyboard shortcuts for the most commonly used UI elements. Will it be as fast and efficient for everything, heck no, but like the star chart before this update introduced the wacky zooming, it will be perfectly serviceable. DE's desire for a better unified UI is certainly understandable/reasonable.

The old UI had it's share of quirks too, like the triggers changing tabs on the syndicate offerings instead of the chat window that's popped up over it. Using odd/inconsistent button mappings like clicking the left or right stick to accept/open some dialogs. Horizontal scrolling that has gotten really out of hand with how many mods/equipment we have these days. Take the market UI for example, to this day I still accidentally close it by pressing circle to back up to the top level instead of triangle. Getting rid of the buy with X, buy with discount with R1 and just being able to click on stuff with a virtual cursor is a change I would actually welcome.

That said, this update was a mistake. If DE wanted reasonable/focused feedback on the virtual cursor, they should have updated 1 or 2 UI elements to a reasonable approximation of their new design, like the arsenal and/or equipment screen, and given us an option to enable it to try. Why give feedback on something we know is already going to be changed, especially when most of the issues are glaringly obvious to anyone that actually picks up a controller?!?

After 2000+ hours I don't mind taking a break to let DE sort this out (I was pretty muck taking a break from WF to play MHW anyway), but it's really unfortunate for those that are still actively playing. Sadly, given how frequently consoles see updates, we're probably stuck with this one for a while.

[(PSN)ctcjoe19]

This update was a bad idea, bring back the the old system or give us an option asap.

[Ham_Grenabe]

5 hours ago, (PS4)Anfffy said:

Totally agree, myself and everyone I normally play with ended up jumping off within 5-10 min and played something else.

Tried adjusting the sensitivity but it was just really frustrating, you put it to fast and you scroll straight past you put it on where it's an acceptable speed and it's still to slow.

I did like the slight changes on the visual side it looks much more clear.

I just had to stop playing. I'm a PC player who uses mouse and keyboard AND controller  (yes, intentionally, because it works VERY WELL that way), and if you think it's bad with just a controller...there's a whole second layer of problems (namely, there is constant UI "mode" switching every time you intentionally or accidentally touch one or the other input devices). 

That's an edge case, obviously. But it's the nature of this new UI thing: it's no single awful thing*, but a host of small annoyances and slowdowns that add up to an unpleasant experience. You already spend more time in your menus than you do in a mission in this game, and now that time is increased simply due to slowdown. Shame that they're about to release a new quest, because I do not like fighting with user-surly interfaces. 

 

* If there is one awful thing, I guess, it's adopting the entire concept of a virtual cursor. Controller-driven virtual cursors are slow and clumsy substitutes for mice, and while they may be a thing in some games (Destiny, No Man's Sky, etc.), that doesn't make them the a good thing. But it seems like DE is in their "headfirst, eyes closed, can't lose" frame of mind. 

[(PSN)Tenudin]

OK so I gave it a day to really interact and play with it before posting here. In short, to say I hate it would be a gross understatement.

• WHY WERE HOTKEYS REMOVED FROM THE ARSENAL?!?! WHY? This was the perfect setup for controller use.
• You can't access the drop down menu to leave a group using the d-pad. Gotta use that new special stick cursor.
• Trying to use the d-pad in the "Sort by:" drop down menu for mods is beyond infuriating. It skips one or more options at barely a tap.
• Speaking of mods, you can't use the d-pad to move down from your load out to your remaining mods and then use L1 or R1 to sort by type.The UI doesn't detect that the cursor is actually down there. It will instead swap the load out itself. You have to move it with the stick for the UI to notice it.
• The drag and drop aspect of the mod menu is clunky as hell for controller use. Another example where the old UI was ten times better.
• Why am I having to double tap items to equip them? Adding more steps to do something in any UI (not just in games) is backwards and it pisses off the user base.
• Why do I have to drag the cursor over my warframe in the arsenal to rotate it? This is annoying as hell when I'm swapping around cosmetics and constantly having to move the cursor back and forth so I can see how my frame looks.
• I'm not even sure where to start on color pallet selection. It is beyond bad. All i can say is it went from intuitive to a complete mess. Actually that sums up this entire update.
• Moving and scaling sigils using the arrows seems to be completely random. Tapping the button gives a random result each time. I much preferred having standard scale intervals.

There is more. I just can't think of them right now. It mostly centers around the d-pad and how screwed up the arsenal is. Judging from Steve's tweets, its a push it out broken and fix it later kind of deal as usual.

In closing, this doesn't just feel like a step back. It feels like you turned around and went back to the starting line. How this made it past any actual controller users in testing is well beyond my understanding. I have to assume DE wanted it out whether it was done or not. Unify that UI and the people who don't use mouse & KB can deal with it. PC controller users hated this as well and they were ignored so whatever. As it stands, I will play the sacrifice when it comes out in July or August on consoles to get some closure on the current events then I'm probably done for a while. The UI is everything in a game and currently it's infuriating to say the least. I'll check back after a few months to see if it gets fixed.

On a side note though, I do have a suggestion since you're blowing up and rebuilding the UI. Make it so I can assign say Ivara's 1 and Khora's 3 to the same button. Basically any powers that have that cycle function. Maybe this can be done from the abilities button in the arsenal. I use the touchpad for most powers. But when Ivara released with that quiver and multiple cycling abilities on her 1, I had to designate a button to it since swiping the touchpad doesn't cycle. Luckily reload and context action can be used for the same thing thus freeing up a button. As it stands in order to swap between Ivara and Khora I have to go into the settings menu and change my ability presets. That or the kavat just gets stuck in whatever mode it's in to start the mission (which is what normally happens). I refuse to use that ability pallet thing. My triggers and shoulder buttons are set in stone and not moving. Plus I really don't want to take my thumb away from the right stick to melee.

[(PSN)TheRallykiller]

8 hours ago, (PS4)LEONARD_LEONE said:

You guys are freaking out over something that haven't even reached its final form, something that devs made abundantly clear, lets give them some credit and wait till after the 2nd part is added.

I played on PS4 since launch and I think this is a great update and will probably make more sense once we have the part 2 of UI overhaul as it's not meant to work with this old stuff.

It's not perfect tho so here are things to improve:

1. When moding add grab and hold option/toggle.

2. When hovering over wep/frame have a square open appearance, triangle upgrade and cross equip. (Just like a mouse has several buttons it would make sense that our pointer does too)

3. Have the pointer give visual feedback (like change shape or color when it's clicking on something) and the menu that is being select visually highlighted or change color.

4. Ability to close chat tabs by clicking on them directly instead of opening sub menu and ability to drag them.

5. When under appearance have right stick always rotate frame (bonus if you add another axis) and have r3 reset to center front and center back on second click.

6 Unrelated; but give me a shoulder toggle back when aiming.

 

Warframe was the reason I got a PS4 and over the past 3 (4...5?) years, I feel like they've hit a beautiful balance on console UI and thus, UX.

IMHO, I have faith in the team to work in the best interest of the players AND streamline dev time for DE staff...

But last night, the game that I have played every day since I got my PS4 just crippled my ambition to play because the cursor+dpad is NOT intuitive—even if you're familiarized to PC mouse+keyboard and PC+controller interfaces/controls.

The time I spent per-action went from 1 to 4 seconds (nav, quick modding, selection, etc.) to minutes (relic selection, store navigation).

I'll ALWAYS give them the benefit of the doubt because based on the attention they give the game, the transparency the devs put on forums and in streams, and the community outreach..Digital Extremes are exemplars of what the modern game dev should be...

...but, this is a morale crippling update whose timing couldn't be worse (pre-Tennocon, pre-Sacrifice) and I will unintentionally skew my perception of coming content based on my experience with the current UI.

I don't think this would affect me as much as it does if it was a set of balance changes, art, or even mechanics.  The UI is something I have to use—no matter what—to do anything in the game, and if it's rough, cumbersome, and difficult...well, the frustration from that experience bleeds over into what normally is a really fun game.

As someone who works in marketing, this change to console player UX will affect (negatively) the coming content that should generate excitement.

This UI update is "the grain of salt" people talk about when they say, "I take that with a grain of salt." (obviously)

[(PSN)Tenudin]

I think about the game I was playing Monday night and then the game I logged into yesterday and it just makes me mad and confused at how this was pushed out. It's such a huge leap backwards.

[(PSN)TheRallykiller]

Maybe I should just note I bought a platinum pack to get some skins/armor and I intended to buy the next frame/prime access.

The UI has impacted my willingness to part with my $$$ in the future, and I've seen similar feelings from folks on social media, these forums, and in-game chat.

There really seems to be a big opportunity cost with these UI changes, and I hope DE thinks really hard about the interconnectedness between the UX and $$$.

I don't think my concern for these changes is "freaking out", I just think that as a Tenno who really looks to this game as a source of relaxation and enjoyment at the end of the day, I am a bit worried about the immediate and long-term impact this could have on a playerbase that's seen steady and almost constant growth.